IMAGINiT Clarity

06/19/2018

For those of you using Revit Server to house your central models, you already know that there is notan actual Revit model on the server, instead, there is a collection of data which makes up the model and support files that hold information related to synchronizing with the model.

Project Folder Contents

If you look at the Projects folder on the machine that you have Revit Server installed on, you will see something similar to below for the models.

Within the modelname.rvt folder you will see the following folders and files

The data directly related to the models geometry, and permissions associated to the file, is in the Data and Permissions subfolders.

The sum of these folders is reported through the Model Size column. The mirrored permissions folder is a read-only replica of the permissions folder. This is maintained to achieve better performance; we can have an unlimited number of reads (far more common than writes) without conflicting with a write.

Everything else counts towards the Support Files column.

Support File Bloat

One of the big contributors is the information saved to the Users_Temp folder. During a sync with central all of the users updates are saved to a temporary holding area until all of the information arrives. If it arrives intact, it is then committed and sent to the central file. If the sync is successful, after it is sent to the model, the temporary information is then deleted and the users folders will be empty.

If the sync failsto receive all of the information, it will not forward it on to the model, so it stays in limbo so to speak, causing bloat in the file from failed syncs. This failure could be related to network latency issues, or it could be that a user killed Revit while it was still working on something.

You may notice that the support file size may briefly increase in size, but it should reduce again after the next successful sync with central which will clean out the temp folders.

Please be aware that if the support file size continues to be a problem, it should be investigated to verify that the issue is not being caused by a network stability issue, or a users Revit practices (i.e. a user had a failed operation and has not re-attempted the operation and SWC to clear out the temp folder).

To reduce the support file size, you will need to save up a new central file over the top of the existing model.

Maintaining the file

As we all know, heavy files are slower files, so maintaining the central files leanness is important.

I have included a blog link with instructions on how to performmaintenance on the central file for a Revit Server model.

Autodesk Article Reference

If maintenance alone does not resolve the issue, it will be necessary to follow the instructions in this Autodesk article: Revit server support files get huge

06/23/2017

Every once in a while I get asked about how to limit access to Projects on Revit Server. Unfortunately there is no way to limit access to projects natively in Revit Server. Autodesk has an article on this topic which you can access here.

If you are wanting Revit Server security along with a whole host of task automation options for Revit such as PDFs, DWG export, Navis exports, Data Sheets and Backup projects to name a few I would recommend you take a look at IMAGINiT Clarity

Note

There is a way to limit access to the Revit Server administrator if you would like to do that, the instruction can be seen at this Autodesk article.

09/23/2016

Symptoms

If you are running Clarity tasks which require the links such as PDF, and the task is either failing or printing without the links because it can’t find the drive.

There are circumstances where the drive is mapped via a login script, so even though you can see the mapped drives connected through windows explorer, if you open Revit you will see that the mapped drives are disconnected.

Note

You can verify if Clarity has access to the drive by going to Tasks/Task Servers in the Clarity web portal. Under Server Drives you can see what is available.

07/08/2016

If you are having issues with Clarityprinting most, but not all PDF's, which makes it unable to create the zip file since it can't find all of the documents, this is likely due to the printer properties being set to spool.

If you watch the task run on the task server you will see the print dialog open and waiting for a file name.

The printer properties should be set to Print directly to the printer as shown below.

You will likely see an error in the journal similar to the image below.

If the issue is not related to the spool setting it may be necessary to uninstall and reinstall the Clarity PDF software.

IMPORTANT NOTE

We have run into cases where other software, in the case I am referring to it was a billing software, that was overriding the setting and forcing it to spool even after it had been set to print directly.

Our development team is always working hard to improve the software and this includes listening to our clients and adding requested features. I will show you some of the new features incorporated intoClarity 2017you can see a more complete list here

Clarity 2017

Clarity 2017 now supports Revit/Revit Server versions 2014-2017

Revit Server task processing support without Clarity Connect.

You can now run Tasks on Revit Server based projects, keep in mind though that you will have to follow the Clarity project naming convention in order for this to work.

Clarity Connect is still required for Revit Server based projects if you want Security, Cache Management, Maintenance, Locks, Health, etc.

Web Portal Updates

Server Tab

On the Central Host you can now see when an update is available as well as a link to instructions.

If you click on the "Upgrade Available" it will take you to a web page which will tell you what is included in the update.

Additionally you can now Stop/Start the Monitoring Service from here rather than going to the host and services.

Tasks Tab

Task Visibility

Standard Users now have visibility to tasks related to assigned project.

Task Servers

There is also an "Upgrade Available" notification for the Task servers. The upgrade will still need to be run from the task server.

Task Timeline

You can now select future dates to get an estimate on future Task processing. This is based on past task times for estimation.

All Projects Tab

Add tags to projects

Grid View or Thumbnail view options

All Projects Header

More customizable

Recently updated Files

Simplified UI for File Filter setup, you can now simply place a check mark in the box next to the files you want. To use the original method you can select the advanced tab.

Projects now have Tasks on side menu

These are just a sampling of some of the enhancements in Clarity 2017!